I kind of hope my friends on SMOFs and JOF will pick this up and start a dialog...

I think we're ill-served by the traditional "supporting" and "attending" membership names for Worldcon.

Hear me out.

We have people complaining about paying to vote for the Hugo awards. We have people confused about voting fees and supporting memberships and why they have to pay both in site selection.

Don't just tell me they're ignorant and don't understand us. This jargon, while traditional, is impenetrable to newcomers.

Can we change the name of a "supporting" membership to a "WSFS" membership? Because it's easy to explain you need a WSFS membership to vote on awards given by WSFS. It's easy to explain the site selection voting fee is your WSFS "membership dues" for 2 years out, and we care that people aren't just members for the year that they're casting their ballot, but for the year they're voting on.

(Oh, and the answer is, of course we can, if we run it through the WSFS business meeting. But getting people talking about it now is the first step.)

Comments

I think you're on the right track. Maybe "Basic Membership" and "Attending Membership?" That's the least change option and maybe "Basic WSFS Membership" might penetrate the way "Supporting Membership" does not while still leaving the existing "Attending Membership" unchanged.